She had taken a few steps backward and sunk upon a low chair, while Dora had crossed to the fireplace and ensconced herself in a corner, where she sat in silence, watching us with undisguised satisfaction. I, too, had seated myself in an armchair, so near that of Sybil that I could hold and caress her tiny hand.
“Your ring,” I exclaimed, noticing her wedding-ring, “is that the one I placed upon your finger?”
She smiled and sadly shook her head, replying:
“No, you did not place it there.”
“What!” I cried amazed. “Are you not my wife? Is not that your wedding-ring?”
“No, Stuart,” she answered very gravely. “This is my wedding-ring, it’s true, but you are not my husband.”
“Then you have—you’ve married someone else!” I gasped, starting up. But she gripped my wrist, forcing me firmly back into my chair, saying:
“Did you not, a moment ago, promise you would hear me without question? Have patience, and you shall know everything—everything.”
Then, sighing heavily, she pushed the tendrils of fair hair from her white, open brow, while I sank back among the cushions impatient and perplexed.
“Only to-day, a few hours ago, the chains of the thraldom under which I have lived were drawn so tightly around me, galling me to the quick,” she said, in a low, hurried voice, after sitting a few moments silent and agitated. “Only this morning I saw how hopeless was the effort to elude that thraldom in the smallest degree that my whole being ached in torture, and I hated the world and wished to escape from it; yet the two events for which I have longed through all these dreary, wearying days have now occurred. I am free to speak, and you have come to me with forgiveness on your lips.”